


The Queen In Splendor

by prussianblues



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Dark Dany, F/M, It's Not Paranoia If They're Really Out To Get You, Mad Queen Dany, Madness, R Plus L Equals J, WILL NOW BE HAVING A SEQUEL, anti everyone who isn't dany, book jon would despise show jon, burn them all, feel free to bitch about the show in the comments, for dany anyway, i just wanted to write something dark where dany wins, i left my morals at the door and so should you, if you're anti dany don't bother lmao, in this house we are salty about the show and no longer stan any lannisters or starks, in this house we respect daenerys stormborn of house targaryen, lol, subscribe, the jonerys in this story isn't positive, the poor girl, this was my knee jerk reaction and is definitely not meant to be taken seriously, warning: dany romanticizes the hell out of rhaegar, we know one queen and her name is DAENERYS
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-13
Updated: 2019-05-13
Packaged: 2020-03-02 19:21:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,814
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18817366
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prussianblues/pseuds/prussianblues
Summary: “Then let it be fear,” Daenerys says.Empires fall and a queen rises, a dragon reborn in the ashes yet again. From madness, a new dynasty is born.





	The Queen In Splendor

**Author's Note:**

> I'm made out of salt and rage.

There is ash in the air, soot on her face, and smoke dancing around her. Underneath her, Drogon roars and Daenerys grips his spikes with more force. She is trembling with fear, with uncertainty, but there is grief and rage inside her as well. The anger is a fire inside her, hotter than all the fires she has lit this day.

The bell rings.

It rings, and Daenerys can hear the screaming and moaning. Daenerys is burning with anger, but the people below her are drowning in fear. They are hurting and dying and they are—they are afraid for their lives, afraid of her. For so many years she has been a liberator, a queen and mother to her people, but today they think her a monster.

The bell is ringing, still.

People have long run away from Drogon. There are no faces to look up at Daenerys with fear in this moment, but Daenerys remembers them from minutes ago, and the anger inside her grows. Never has she taken a city where the people inside its walls did not rise up for her. The people of King’s Landing have run away in fear, run away from her and her dragon, and the thought makes her sight go the color of blood. Who are these people—who do they think they are—to make Daenerys Targaryen go to these lengths? _They are ungrateful,_ she thinks, _or they would have overthrown their usurpers years ago._ They would have overthrown Cersei, her children, the Usurper himself, but they are cowards and fools.

There is nothing but filth within these walls.

Daenerys’ hands tighten on Drogon’s spikes, and she chooses.

* * *

Ash is like snow. She thinks back on the North, of all the grief heading that way had brought her. Drogon is all she has left, the last of her children, and Daenerys vows that he will live on after her. If she cannot have a child of her blood, she will have a child of her fire. _Fire and blood,_ Daenerys thinks, _that is all I am now._

Daenerys is House Targaryen, as she has always been.

The Red Keep has been destroyed, the whole blasted city burnt to the ground, but among the rubble, Daenerys finds what she came for. The Unsullied take three days to clear a path for Daenerys to walk, but after all this time, she stands in front of the Iron Throne. It is an ugly thing, tall and black and deformed. There is no symmetry to it, and she can see why it has claimed the lives of at least one king.

 _It won’t claim mine,_ she thinks before she takes her first step up to its seat. She sits with her back straight, ash blowing in the wind. Daenerys does not bleed. These kingdoms have claimed the life of her entire house and two of her children, but she is determined that there will be no more dragonblood spilled.

King’s Landing is in ruins all around her, but with seven kingdoms at her feet, what does a single city matter to her?

* * *

Arya comes for her.

Daenerys would not say she expected it, but she is also not surprised. The girl is Sansa’s sister, after all, and the Starks appear to be nothing but treacherous, it would seem.

Arya peels off Greyworm’s face. In her chambers, Daenerys is all alone, unarmed, and Arya knows how to use the dagger in her hand.

“Tell me, my lady, is it not enough to kill a king? You also wish to kill a queen?” Daenerys takes a sip of her water. She has had no food for a moon and little but water since Rhaegal’s death.

“You must be stopped,” Arya Stark says. “You’re worse than Cersei.”

Daenerys shrugs. She does not care what Arya thinks of her, not anymore. Once, Arya’s steem meant much, but Jon will never love her like she wishes he did. It is pointless to pine after the approval of a girl who will never give it, anyway. “Then let us both be worse than her. Kill me, then, kill me like Jaime Lannister killed my father. Shall I turn my back on you so that you stab me through the back?”

Arya looks at her with disgust. “You’re truly mad.”

Daenerys snorts. “Mad? No. I can honestly say I’m saner than ever. I see things so clearly now.” Daenerys can hear Olenna Tyrell’s words in her head: _Are you a dragon? Then be a dragon._

“Mad,” Arya repeats, and takes a step towards Daenerys.

“Will you grant me one last wish, though?” she says. Her voice is calm, almost bored, but inside Daenerys, there is a storm brewing. Arya keeps advancing towards her. “Would you tell your cousin I think it would have been a boy?”

And Arya stops, her eyes widening. “You’re lying!”

“I don’t lie, girl,” Daenerys lies.

“You’re _lying!”_ Arya screams, rushing at her. She grabs Daenerys by the hair, placing the dagger at her neck. The blade is cold against Daenerys’ skin.

“I don’t lie, girl, and you know it. I carry your cousin’s child inside of me, but if you think the babe’s death is worth your conscience, kill me now and end this farce.”

“Stop,” Arya commands, but it is Daenerys who is the queen, and she follows no orders but her own.

“Kill your nephew, my lady. Kill your brother’s son,” she taunts, shaking.

But Arya, for all that Daenerys thinks she is a deceitful worm instead of a wolf, sheathes her dagger and pushes her to the marbled floor. Daenerys covers her middle, trying her best to fall on her back. When she looks up, the girl is gone.

Yet by the next moon’s turn, Arya lies in chains.

* * *

“Let her go,” Jon begs her.

“Why should I?” Daenerys spits at him. “She wished to have me killed.”

“But she didn’t kill you, Dany,” Jon says. “She’s just a girl.”

“She’s a woman grown, for all that she has the intelligence of a newt,” Daenerys says. “I grow tired of this, Jon, the girl is to die.”

“She didn’t kill you, Daenerys! She didn’t go through with it,” Jon insists. “Can you not find it in your heart to forgive?”

“I forgive, Jon,” Daenerys snaps at him. “I forgive and forgive. I’ve been betrayed over and over, and I’ve been merciful to those who deserve it. You are alive. You are here despite all you’ve done.”

“Then forgive her for my sake,” he says, breathing hard.

 _He’s afraid of me,_ Daenerys realizes sadly, but then she thinks, _Good. ‘Then let it be fear,’ I said. Let it be fear in truth._

Daenerys ignores him, instead choosing to continue with her words, “And do you know why you’re alive, Jon? Do you know why I’ve let you live despite all the trouble you’ve caused me, all the heartache? Do you know why I haven’t gotten rid of the only other claimant to the Iron Throne?” She steps closer to him, until she stands nose to nose with him, and whispers, “Because I love you, Jon, because I love you, and my heart—this heart you claim has no mercy—can’t stand the thought of seeing you dead.”

“Dany—” he starts.

Daenerys looks away, brushing his hands off her. They have been together since the destruction of King’s Landing, but Daenerys knows he only does it because he wants to control her. They both know she loves and wants him, after all. Today, however, she cannot bear the thought of him touching her with duty on his mind.

“Arya dies at sunrise.”

* * *

Sansa does not stay quiet for long. She sends a raven declaring her allegiance to Jon Targaryen, King of the Seven Kingdoms and Lord Protector of the Realm. She has no doubt that she has done it in the hopes that she will kill Jon and incite the Northmen in the ruins of King’s Landing to violence, but Daenerys is not a fool.

Not anymore. She had Tyrion executed the day after burning the city, and now there is no one to curb her, to ruin her. There is no one left to naysay her, so Daenerys sends a sellsword north and Sansa Stark is lowered into the crypts of her forefathers. She gives Winterfell to Alys Karstark. The girl is obedient, if nothing else.

* * *

Jon means to kill her. He has Longclaw in his grip before Daenerys knows what he is doing. She sees the glint of steel and tenses. Daenerys has handled a sword before, when she has been forced to, but she knows she cannot hope to hold off Jon.

Especially not without a weapon of her own.

“Don’t do this,” she says when he corners her.

“I have to, Dany,” he tells her, the coward, the coward she should have had _killed_ —

“You don’t have to do anything, Jon,” she says in a shaking voice. _How is it,_ Daenerys wonders, _that I love and hate him at once? How can I still love him after everything?_ “What you do, you do because you want to.” Daenerys takes a deep breath, tears flowing down her cheeks, and whispers, “Have you wanted to kill me this whole time?”

“No.” Jon shakes his head, a deep scowl on his face. “I love you, Dany, I mean it. I love you, but you’ve gone too far.”

“Too far?” Dany asks him, her back touching the cold stone of the wall at her back. “All I’ve done—all I’ve done,” she says, hysteria rising in her throat, “is take back what was taken from me.” Daenerys could have grown up in the Red Keep, loved by two brothers and Jon and Rhaegar’s other children. She could have had it all, but instead she grew up on the streets, begging, until she was sold and raped and somehow birthed dragons. So much was taken from her, and Daenerys never let it turn her mean. She had been kind to the slaves, had freed them, had given them her love, but the people of the Seven Kingdoms are singularly hateful and ungrateful.

 _It was them who was wrong,_ she thinks. It’s their fault that I’ve done what I’ve done.

“And you had it,” Jon says. “There was no need to… to burn the city, to kill my sisters. They were my family!”

Rage rises in her. “I’m your family,” she snaps. “I’m your family and you’ve betrayed me, over and over, and you’re going to kill me, your own blood. Rhaegar would be rolling in his grave, if he had one.” _Rhaegar,_ Daenerys thinks, _would have wanted House Targaryen restored._ Surely her brother would have wanted them wed.

“But so were they,” Jon whispers.

Daenerys shuts her eyes. It will hurt, she knows, but no stab in the back will be as painful as his first one in Winterfell, as his betrayal of her trust.

Yet it does not come. What does come is a roar, the sound of breaking glass and collapsing stone. She feels heat at her side, and when she opens her eyes, she sees the black of Drogon’s scales.

Jon has gone tense, his gloved hands tight around Longclaw. He looks from the dragon to Daenerys, his eyes pleading. Daenerys takes a deep breath, her mouth forming the word, Dracaerys, but she cannot say it. She loves him too much; she needs him too much.

“Drop your sword, Jon Snow. You’re my prisoner once more.”

* * *

There is a trial. She has never bothered with a trial, but Jon has always been an exception for Daenerys. He gets his trial, and promptly loses it. He asks for a trial by combat then, and Daenerys says, “You may not be a knight, Jon, but you’re the best swordsman in these kingdoms today. I’m a woman, but my champion is fire. My champion is my dragon. Are you going to fight a dragon?”

His eyes have gone wide.

“I thought not.”

It has been such a long time since she has held such control over the people around her. Where before there was chaos and uncertainty, now there is order. The people are filled with fear, but these people have already proven themselves unworthy and pathetic. They will, in time, learn to love her, though, and if they do not, then their children surely will.

Jon is to be executed three moons after her destruction of King’s Landing, but on that day she gives him a choice. “You can wed me tomorrow or die today. You may not love me, you may despise me, but what I feel for you is true. Rule by my side, and together we can be Jaehaerys and Alysanne come again.”

“You’re nothing like Alysanne,” Jon says, sitting in the Black Cells, glowering at her from the other side of the bars.

“That’s true,” Daenerys tells him, “I’m Jaehaerys, and come what may, the people will bend until the histories of the Seven Kingdoms hail me as they do our ancestor.” Daenerys looks away. “If you think me so mad, if you think me a monster, then what I’m offering you is a chance to tame the monster in me. Aren’t you a good, noble man? A noble man can surely turn a woman good with all his wisdom,” Daenerys says bitterly.

“You can’t be turned good again.”

“I have no desire to be good,” Daenerys declares. “I have done good, and I have been made a fool for it. I’m a queen, a queen in her own name, and I have no need for goodness. You, though, I think you care, and the only way for you to do good right now is to be by my side, Jon.”

Jon says nothing.

Daenerys sighs. “I expect your answer by sundown. Choose… wisely.”

* * *

Jon does not choose wisely, and Daenerys is a liar; he has called her bluff, but she has not killed him. He is a prisoner, completely in her grip, but he is also a threat. Somewhere in these kingdoms, there are lords plotting to crown him, she is sure, and when they do she must be prepared. He has the better claim to the throne… and he has a cock.

King’s Landing is a ruin, but she rules from Dragonstone while Aegon’s city is rebuilt. There, in that fortress where Aegon the Conqueror planned his invasion of the Seven Kingdoms, she finds out that she is with child.

There is no question as to whose child it is. The lie she once told Arya Stark has become the truth.

Daenerys does not tell a soul. Her guards know, and people whisper that she is dead, but she grows big with child and the screams from her throat as her bedsheets turn red are all the proof the smallfolk of Dragonstone have that she is alive.

But no longer alone.

When the sun rises in the east, Daenerys thinks with anger. Yet when she beholds the boy, a small, red thing, she feels nothing but triumph.

“Rhaegar,” she says in a hoarse voice. “Rhaegar Targaryen, my love. Let us hope you’ll be the man I once thought your father to be. Good and strong, kind and good and loving.”

* * *

Rhaegar has her hair, silver like starlight. He wears it long in a braid that reaches the middle of his back, but his eyes are his father’s grey. Sometimes when she looks at him, she thinks of Jon, swallowing a vial of poison to be rid of her. Her son knew his father, but he remembers little of him besides what Daenerys tells him.

When Rhaegar has turned eleven namedays old, Daenerys says, “Jon was a good man.” It is all she can say of him these days. Rhaegar is getting old enough that he will soon be able to tell her lies from everything else she says. In truth, Daenerys thinks Jon was weak and herself weaker for loving him the way she did. She has grown stronger since. “But sometimes good men and women do stupid things, and they let themselves be swayed by others. What do I always tell you, Rhaegar?”

“Don’t slouch,” the boy says immediately.

Daenerys smiles at him. “Other than that, sweetling.”

Rhaegar rolls his eyes, an impish grin on his lips. “‘You don’t want to wake the dragon, do you?’”

She nods, thinking Viserys would not be amused. “You must remember, Rhaegar, that there will always be those who question you, who think they know better, but in the end, my love, you’re a dragon, and all should fear your wrath. Let it be on their heads for them to wake your ire. Let it be fear, you must say, if that’s what they choose.”

 _Let it be fear indeed,_ Daenerys thinks, smiling at her son.

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't even edited this but I needed to get it out of my system.
> 
> EDIT: It took a Dany hater less than three hours to leave hate on this story. God, I love how insecure they are, it's so _precious._ I'm LIVING.


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